


Absolution in the Palm of Your Hand

by whilst



Category: Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Genre: F/M, Light Bondage, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilst/pseuds/whilst
Summary: The ghola Duncan Idaho is summoned before his wife, Saint Alia of the Knife.
Relationships: Alia Atreides/Duncan Idaho
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Absolution in the Palm of Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cat2000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat2000/gifts).



> "There are really patterns. It was a revelation, of a kind. Dreams and sand and stories. Deserts and cities and time." (Sandman #39: Soft Places)

"Mentat that you are," Alia said, "you must have already surmised why I called you before me."

"My investigation of Radri Iben Jalaf," replied Duncan Idaho from where he knelt before her, metal eyes cast down. He knew, of course. But oh, how he had hoped it would not come to this. "My Lady, I believed there to be a thread of corruption among the cantors and the evidence pointed toward Radri." 

“You have no jurisdiction among the Arakeen priesthood." Alia reminded him, as though he could have forgotten.

Duncan offered no defense. He felt he needed none. In both lives, he had been an Atreides, and a Fremen as well. He had not acted on neither sentiment nor legal obligation, but pure logic in the defense of the Atreides, of Alia herself. If she should demand some kind of apology he would, of course, obey, but he saw no need to submit to her authority in this instance. He wished that they could be candid about these matters of state, but alas, things were not that way between them. Was it because of the change he had sensed in her? Had he perhaps - gone too far? In any case, there was nothing left to do but await his fate.

In a way his compliance and silence were more infuriating than anger or defensiveness would be. He was - she could tell - absolutely convinced of his rightness, of the justice in what he had done, regardless of her feelings... which she had not shared. But he should have known. It was ~~maddening~~ irritating, but at the same time… knowing he had her best interests at heart, that he might interfere with her design, but would never harm her...

 _Hayt_ , Alia reminded herself, forming that other name like a talisman in her mind, warding off weak sentiment. His offense was no small thing. But the longer she watched him, the more her thoughts swirled, a tangled chaos in her mind - anger, fear, the lingering warmth of love and affection still for that dark round face and its metal, cave-sitter eyes.

 ~~He’s nothing like Javid, like the soft young men she….~~ With a sudden, cutting motion, as if shaking off an idle thought, Alia gestured imperiously toward the single piece of furniture at the center of the room, a sturdy thing of fine wood and glossy leather padding, meant to brace a supine body, and thick straps intended to enforce the position. It had little of the Fremen charm that prevailed most of the Atreides palace. Something, his perfect and removed memory offered, was closer to Harkonnen opulence.

"My Lady?" There was nothing in Hayt's voice that suggested confusion or hesitation. Contriteness. But familiarity … Alia knew her husband well. Shyness, perhaps. And a hint of fear. At the sight of that fear, thrill at licked at the back of her throat, like a flame.

"Duncan Idaho," she said, "undress. And bend over the bench."

As Duncan removed his clothes, he could see the memory-ego of a hulking shape in her, cruel, gloating, almost masculine. For a moment, her gaze fely slimy and unpleasant and he stiffened, knowing she must see it in him.

He forced his shoulders to relax as he turned toward the bench and leaned over it, limbs draped carefully around either side, it's softened leather padding sticking slightly to his skin. It smelled only of the oils used to treat it and the Spice that pervaded everything... and he could feel that his mind was deliberately wandering.

Once he had charmed her with his mind, his skills as a mentat. And with his maleness. When he had only been Hayt, she had wanted him, and when he had awakened, they had drawn closer together through the singularities of their selfhoods: preborn and ghola. She had confided in him, and he had known her as not even Paul seemed to. Now, he could not unknow that the woman he loved was not his Alia, falling farther and farther from the Atreides values he was pledged to.

This imposter Alia strapped him down with a practiced ease she should not possess, and he submitted. 

The matter of his investigation and Radri, he didn't care a whit. This punishment was a farce and they both knew it. But he did feel guilty about his wife. How could he have allowed this to happen? Was he too wrapped up in his duty to see how she had needed him? He had let his hesitation, his knowledge of unknowable things, his complicated memory-id, blind him to the simple facts in front of him - this was his wife, the daughter of Duke Leto and Lady Jessica, Regent of Arrakis, and Paul's strange precious preborn sister, and he’d let this happen. Without doing a thing about it. He had given her his support, and yet things had still come to this.

Alia was slipping away, and he deserved this and more. He closed his eyes and exhaled deliberately into the first strike of her palm. 

_He takes the blows so beautifully_ she thought, even as the impression of her maternal grandfather disagreed, turning away in some disgust. The space he left behind surprised her, but her attention couldn't be diverted from Hayt for long.

His skin bloomed hot beneath her hand, pink and red bruises scattered over the expanse of his backside and thighs, completely at her disposal, to do exactly with as she wishes. The muscles of his body tensed and relaxed beneath her touch, reminiscent of something softer, but it was the pain she was enjoying, the pain and his submission to the humiliation of her demand. She felt closer to him than she had felt in so long, his hitched breaths and muffled cries more stirring than the polite, stilted conversations that were their usual exchange, the everyday niceties between a reliable husband-consort and authoritative ruler-wife.

Hayt didn't tense or resist or move away from the pain deliberately, staying open to it, as if welcoming her touch/attention/demand in any way he could get it. Openness and vulnerability, not common tools of a Fremen or a weaponsmaster. 

Tears pricked in her eyes without warning. Hayt—Duncan was beautiful. She wanted more, and she had absolute assurance that he would give it to her willingly, without her even needing to ask. She blinked back moisture with the carelessness of long habit and lifted a paddle made of heavy Caladan wood from its mount on the wall. 

And lost herself in the act. _Thud, thud, thud._ Sometimes with a steady rhythm, sometimes off-beat, bit by bit she could feel the Baron's presence leaving her, disinterested in the proceedings and in this particular subject so long as his plans for the priesthood went unmolested. Alia could not be so unmoved. He took it so well, her Hayt. Her Duncan. 

He noticed the change in her before the rhythm of each impact slowed and shifted. "Alia," he said without meaning to. Her name was said so quietly, it should have been lost under the sound of flesh on flesh, but she stopped. She was breathing hard where earlier she had been steady. With clumsy, shaking fingers, she undid the straps pinning his compliant limbs in place.

Without the constraint of his now-loosened bonds, he looked up into her blue-in-blue eyes, searching. But even with his enhanced observational talents, he saw nothing untoward, and an unconscious tension in his body that he was barely aware of carrying suddenly surged and then ebbed away. No alien cruelty, no memory-ego, just the woman he loved with bright red hands and a conflicted expression.

"Alia," he said again, more clearly, and sat up. The pain along his bottom and the backs of his upper thighs was only a minor concern, a constant, low-level stinging that he was barely aware of as her face crumpled and her knees gave way. He caught her before she fully fell, pressed her swelling hands to his bare chest with one hand and held her against him with his other arm, comforting.

She was too Fremen to cry, but the pain in her face tugged at his heart. For a long moment they simply sat together, silent and pressed against one other, a closer intimacy than they’d shared in a long time. 

Eventually (too soon), she straightened… and he let her go, his reluctance a small, quiet thing, curled up in his heart.

"Get back on the bench," she said sternly, her back was firm once again, and Duncan's heart dropped again. He obeyed. 

Only to be surprised by a cold touch, gentle on his bruised and blistered skin. Alia tended to the aftermath of their long impact session with deft hands and a studious conscientiousness, eyes lowered as though to avoid his seeking gaze. It didn't take a mentat to know she did not want him to look at her right now.

The warmth of her palms eventually bled through the cooling salve, which is welcome, but he revels far more in the demonstration of care. Well after she’d smoothed the spice-enriched material over every inch of abused, swollen flesh, she continued to touch him, lightly, gently, her fingertips lingering in sweeping motions, with no [ulterior] motive but the simple contact between them.

"Apologize," she ordered in that same stern voice, but it was somehow more tender, more present, somehow, than she had sounded in a long while. _Accept me_.

"I'm sorry," he said, unsure. _I'm sorry that you have been alone. I'm sorry my love wasn't enough to save you. I'm so grateful to meet you here again._ He cleared his throat roughly. "Next time I'll ask you before I pursue an investigation among your followers."

"That's what I want," said Alia, like what she meant to say was _keep me_. "You're forgiven." 

The peaceful silence of her mind was resounding, reverberant. For the moment, not Hayt, but Duncan Idaho. 

And she: only Alia of the Atreides. 


End file.
